As part of my MHC Peopling of New York seminar this semester, my class took a field trip to the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side. I had come here before, two summers ago, with my dad. This was such a great experience for me, especially since I got to do the tour with one of my good friends. The tour guide was ridiculously knowledgable. We got an inside look into life in the early immigrant days of the late 1800's and early 1900's when families from Italy and Eastern Europe flooded into this part of the city and these houses were occupied by a multitude of families at a time. The apartments were dark and cramped, and one could only imagine how they must have smelled back then. Families of 4-6 would cramp into an apartment only slightly bigger than my dorm room here at Brookdale (really freaking small!). We learned about how families weathered the depressions and how the government played a key role in supporting these immigrant workers. We even took a little jaunt around the gift shop after and decided we'd come back during the summer for the food tasting tour! Definitely looking forward to that; (also looking forward to nice, warm weather).
Since we didn't have anywhere to be after, my friend and I ventured into Chinatown to find the dumpling place she had been raving about for about two weeks. This place is as small and dinky as it gets, but the dumplings are fantastic and really cheap. I mean 5 for $1, cheap. We stacked up two plates and scarfed them down with chili sauce and vinegar. Delicious. We stopped at a small ice cream shop afterwards. I got Mocha Chip, my friend got Mango. All in all, it was a pretty fun experience. I couldn't even tell you the name of this dumpling place (I actually think it might have been called something like Good Dumpling), but I remember it being on Mosco Street, which is basically just a little alleyway. If you ever want some good dumplings at an affordable college student price, I'd recommend this place.
Finally, I learned an interesting fact today from none other than my friend. She's a bit of a history nerd/buff. We were walking across town with our ice cream, towards City Hall. She stopped me and started telling me about the Five Points District. It got the name Five points from the five-pointed intersection created by Orange Street (now Baxter) and Cross Street (now Mosco). Anthony Street (now Worth) also ran along here, creating the fifth point of the intersection. Now, if you don't know too much about the history surrounding this area of the city, it was basically a disease-ridden and gang infested slum. It allegedly had the highest murder rate of any slum in the world. Basically, there was a murder a night for about 15 years, besides all the gang-related violence, the nativist-sentiment violence, and the draft and anti-abolitionist riots.
This was the original American "melting pot", but most of the violence occurred due to nativist groups who didn't welcome new immigrants, though they had been immigrants only a couple decades before. It was popularly depicted in one of my favorite movies, Gangs of New York. What's crazy is that some of the most blood-soaked land in the city has now been made into....you guessed it, a children's playground. And there we were, standing in the middle of this playground, and all I could see was the scene from Gangs of New York where all the gangs have a bloody fight. It's crazy to see the turnaround of the city's history and how, even though we've covered over these horrible stories, they still exist as a part of our city. That's what makes this city such a historical and fascinating place to live.
Erica
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